The 4th chapter of Roger Parrott’s The Longview: Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders gave me plenty to ponder.  I’ve been mulling over it for a few weeks now.

It is entitled Vulnerability May Get You In, but Humility Keeps You There.  He there outlines some of the differences between transparency and humility which can greatly affect one’s ability to lead a group of people.  I’m part of that transitional generation when transparency began to be advocated after generations of a lack of transparency from leaders about their shortcomings and mistakes.  Parrott writes some things to challenge this.

“But (a pastor) exposing himself in order to demonstrate vulnerability diminishes his ability to be sought after as a counselor who can be looked to for advice.”

At first I am thinking, they need to know I’ve struggled and God has been faithful.  They can’t see me as impervious to sin or above struggling with things.  I’ve talked about my struggles to put unrighteous anger and selfishness to death.  But there are struggles I’ve not shared publicly.  I may share them in private ministry, but not for everyone’s ears.

“While pride is an unattractive quality in leaders, humility is a strength that compels others to follow.  In an effort to be seen as humble, many leaders have wrongfully substituted vulnerability for humility, and in doing so turned a self-centered spotlight on themselves, laying the groundwork for leadership deterioration.”

This is the key thing, substituting vulnerability for humility.  They are not the same thing, and sometimes vulnerability is driven by pride.  Either pride in wanting the spotlight, or in manipulating others to follow through the sharing of secrets.  Parrott notes that many a vulnerable pastor had bigger secrets that lead to a public moral collapse (think Jim Bakker & Jimmy Swaggart).

“Leaders who purposefully expose their liabilities limit their sphere of influence and often forfeit their long-term viability. … Humility and vulnerability are two different things, and the first must be established without offering the second.”

Vulnerability makes you vulnerable, in the wrong way.  You are not merely accessible to others, but leave the gates open for the hordes to attack and oust you.  I’ve experienced this as some people have turned the table on my transparency.  They hide behind the claim that I will get angry and yell at them, without any prior evidence for this.  I have been yelled at many times- no one seems to be afraid to yell at their pastor.  As leaders, we must remember that people are not basically good.  Some people will use the truth against you.

Humility is the most important element of leadership.  Humility means being willing to listen readily instead of thinking you have all the answers.  They think about, and talk about others more than they think and talk about themselves.  But this humility is combined with an “intense professional will”.  This person keeps others focused on the organization and its goals, and how they fit into the plan rather than how the leader fits into the plan.  Most often, effective leaders are able to influence people without direct confrontation and exercising power.  As Mark Driscoll talks about, control and influence are inversely correlated.  The more control you exert, the less influence you will have.

One way in which humility fits in here is the teachable spirit.  A teachable spirit, a willingness to listen to one’s critics, minimizes power differentials.  Unteachable leaders maximize the power differential and reduce their influence over others.  This fits well in the longview.  To remain longterm, you must be humble and teachable.  This means you will learn to work with others in light of eternal perspectives rather than using powerplays to achieve short-term victories.

The Church

1.  The Church by Edmund Clowney

Hands down the best book examining the theology of the church.

2.  No Place for Truth by David Wells

A classic analyzing blow-by-blow how evangelicalism got intertwined with modernity.  If you like this book, I would also suggest his books, God in the Wasteland and The Courage to Be Protestant.

3.  Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr

In this classic, Niebuhr examines five different relationships the church may have to culture/world.  I would also commend two books that examine this book:  D.A. Carson’s, Christ and Culture Revisited and Craig Carter’s, Rethinking Christ and Culture.

4.  Deliberate Church by Mark Dever

Dever gives a thorough look at the structure and justification for all aspects of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

5.  Nine Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever

This book has saved me from unhealthy churches for 10 years now (thanks John B.).

6.  Worship in Spirit and Truth by John Frame

Frame gives a thorough, balanced, and palatable defense of the regulative principle.

7.  The Safest Place on Earth by Larry Crabb

The church (and Christian community) is/are meant to be the safest place on earth.  Sadly, this is often not only not the case, but the church can be the least safe place on earth.  Crabb discourages a legalistic culture within the church and encourages gracious, authentic, and vulnerable community.

8.  Confessions of a Reformission Rev by Mark Driscoll

A hilarious look at the lesson Mark Driscoll learned while planting Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

9.  Prophetic Untimeliness:  A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance by Os Guinness

A needed critique for over-contextualizers who would sacrifice the Gospel in order to be cool.

10.  Missional Church by Darrell Guder (ed.)

This book is a good introduction to the ideas and practices of the missional church movement.  Its hard to believe this book is over 10 years old.

Part 1, part 2, part 3

Marriage is a microcosm of human society.  A key aspect of this micro level is headship in marriage.

In Ephesians 5, Paul explains headship in marriage in a pretty straightforward way.  He recasts the traditional authority of the husband to reflect the way that God upends human authority.  He says, ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’.  What a radical statement!

Let’s get a few things straight, though.  So often, our ideas of headship remain attached to our own human notions of authority.  I see one of the biggest confusions about headship in the word ‘leadership’, which some Christians use more or less interchangeably with ‘headship’.  For example, Mark Driscoll tends to reduce headship to decision making, so that the head is simply the one who calls the shots.  This is off the mark.

Headship does involve being responsible and taking initiative — but remember, these are not our human ideas.  God has subverted these things in Christ.  Headship is being responsible for serving. Headship is taking the initiative in sacrificing.

I use the word initiative deliberately: it captures the idea that, as in the Garden, there is someone who is given the opportunity to start things off and make the first move — just as God did with us in Christ.  This means that headship is not about authority or even about being first.  It is about being the first to serve. Being a real husband means being the one who takes the initiative to love his woman, giving up his life for her.  Being the head in a marriage means being the sacrificial servant who loves his wife so radically that he gives up every desire and ambition and even his own self all for her service.  And to lose your self like that, of course, means you need to know yourself and be dealing with your insecurities.  Maybe we could say there’s a sense of leadership there, but it is profoundly opposed to our human ideas.

Throughout this mini series, I’ve been exploring things in terms of two different groups of guys.  One group needs to see that headship is a very active thing.  This may be your problem because you’re insecure, or it may be your problem because you’re hyper-individualistic.  Either way, to just follow along with your wife or to leave her to tick along by herself is exactly the way not to love her.  When you switch off, that undoes her trust and disempowers her.  Our wives are our equal partners, so manning up means teaming up. Each of you have a corresponding part to play.  You have an equal partnership, but it’s an equal partnership. You empower your wife by partnering with her. Only when you see that you are bound together as partners will you be able to give up your life for her.

Other men have a different problem.  Some of us are so caught up in being ‘active’ and propping up our own insecure machismo that we’re fixated on authority.  We think that real men assert themselves, tell their wives what to do and ‘keep their women in line’.  If that’s you, you have completely missed the point that headship is about service and sacrifice.  You have simply copied the traditional authority of a husband, which grasps at power and control, always reflecting the fall.  A man who needs to control his woman is a weak, fake man.  Strong, real men are big enough to love and empower their wives in every way.  Remember the Bible’s ultimate anti-patriarchal statement: Christ did not grasp power but made himself nothing.  You have an equal partnership, but it’s an equal partnership.  Your wife is your counterpart, so start caring for her.  Then, perhaps, you might even begin to sacrifice yourself for her, as God commands you to.

The bottom line is this: the measure of a husband is not how well his wife submits but how well he serves her.

Commentry on the Latest News

Mike discusses the fascination by young people with the occult; Driscoll and Sproul on salvation; Reformation or Revival?…and more

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I announced in an earlier blogpost that I would spend some time to share some reflections I have on Reformed theology or grace theology that is entering into Scandinavia. As far as I can see it there are three streams that I would like to reflect on. We have reformed charismatic movements, we have the so-called grace-preaching and then I can see another stream of reformed theology that I would like to start up reflecting on today.

I would like to start by reflecting on a stream of Reformed theology that I perceive is gaining some ground in Scandinavia. It’s represented especially by an American pastor named Paul Washer. From what I’ve seen they seem to put a lot of emphasis on repentance from sin and how we are all sinners that need to repent. Put Amazing back into grace seem to be a phrase commonly used by people who would identify with this preaching, and the obvious meaning of that phrase is that by realising how our sin has separated us from God, and by grieving our sin and then to look at the cross and realise that our sin is atoned for by the death of Jesus, make us realise how amazing God’s grace is. “What is man that God be mindful of him” (Psalm 8:4) and “Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes; how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!” (Job 25:5-6) would be verses from the Scripture that would be lifted forward in order to show man’s inadequancy and by constantly grieving our own sin would then even more make God’s grace more amazing in our eyes. There also seem to be a strong emphasis holiness and rejecting sin, even to the point where fear of whether we are saved or not is allowed to gain ground when we do sin.

My first reflection on what I’ve seen and heard from this stream so far would be that theologically I would agree with a lot of things like being amazed about who we really are and what we deserve and then realise the amazing grace God has given us. I sometimes meditate on the curses that are given in for example Deuteronomy for those who do not obey all of God’s commandments and it makes me realise that I actually don’t deserve the grace He has given me. That is healthy exercise! However, my biggest problem with preachers that are inspired by Paul Washer is when I listen to them speaking because then the grace of God doesn’t seem to be that amazing anymore, it doesn’t even seem to be there even. It’s often very hard and harsh messages that’s building up condemnation in the people listening. There doesn’t seem to be any “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” but rather a constant lifting up of what’s behind. The way I see it we should rather have our strength in the joy of the Lord and in rejoicing in who we now are in Christ through his grace, rather than constantly looking back to who we once were in sin. It does have a value in order to show us our need for grace, but the strength to then live for Christ does not come from there.
Jesus did not seem to have his biggest problem with the sinners, the prostitutes or the believers that fell, like Peter for example, but rather with the religious, those who didn’t “sin” and therefore was unable to put their trust in another man’s righteousness.

I would like to finish my reflections by sharing a video clip from another reformed preacher, Mark Driscoll, sharing a message on John Piper’s conference “The supremacy of Christ in a postmodern world 2006″. The irony would be that the people who listen to Paul Washer also seem to listen to people like John Piper and Mark Driscoll, altough I would say that the message we will hear in this video radically differs from what Paul Washer would say.

This is infuriating, but there are Christians—Christians!—distributing a bumper sticker that says, “Pray for Obama—Psalm 109:8″. This sounds innocuous until you actually go and read the verse, and those verses following it:

8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

The psalm goes on like this for several more verses still, and is saturated with religiously sanctioned, jihadi-style, hatred. And now it turns out that the verse is moving from the bumper sticker to the tee-shirt! Of the slogan and verse, the New York Times tells us that:

CafePress is selling T-shirts and bumper stickers . . .

 And I found this at YouTube:

To counter this icky karma, I offer the following video (which represents for me what Barack Obama’s election was about):

If there is a god, I pray that (s)he protects our young, hope inspiring president, and that his wife never be made a widow, nor his little children fatherless. That’s my prayer (1 John 4:7-8).

I was watching the first message in Mars Hill Church’s new series – Luke’s Gospel: Investigating the Man Who is God – and their pastor, Mark Driscoll, was wrapping up his sermon when he brought out a demonstration.  He was in Jerusalem and had his kids stand over a fresh water trough that flowed by the public urinals for a picture.  His guide then explained what would often happen at these public toilets during the time of Jesus.

After hearing what the guide said, like Mark, I made an immediate mental leap to Jesus’ crucifixion.  My view of the act of the sponge lifted up to Jesus’ lips on the cross has certainly been altered if what was said is indeed true (and after a little online research it does appear to be true).

Check out the video and see what you think:

Luke 1:39-45

39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be  a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

1.) What was the journey like to go and see Elizabeth?  Rough terrain, hills, 100 degree heat, 100+ miles, by herself.  What sacrifices are you making to be in community?

2.) Abortion, do you have a position on abortion?  Did you get that position from the Bible?  That is where we should get our position from.  Dear Luke, a medical doctor; what does it mean by baby in verse 41?  Lets see where else Luke uses the word baby.  Luke 1:41(unborn pre-born), Luke 1:44(same word), Luke 2:12(born, out of the womb, infant), Luke 2:16(baby lying in a manger), Luke 18:15-15(let the children come to me), Acts 7:19(infants, little children).  Think little children, pre-born, unborn, infant.  So what is a baby?  A HUMAN, bearing the likeness of God, a baby in a womb is known by God, can be filled by the spirit like John was.

3.) Stats on abortion:

1 in 6 women who have had an abortion claim to be a Christian

5.6 million women in our church have chosen abortion

Each year 1.5 million American women have an abortion.  250,000 this year, women in our church will choose to have an abortion.

A PROCEDURE?  NO ITS MURDER!  A holicost

Women age 20-24 obtain 32% of all abortions, teenagers obtain 20%,

40% of women 15-44 have had at least 1 previous abortion

50% of women who have abortions use it as their sole means of birth control

4.) What does the bible say about abortion?  Exodus 21: 22-25, in regards to a women who is pregnant and gets struck by her husband.  “You shall pay! Life for life, hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”  Capitol offense!  Death!

5.) Is there hope for those who have chosen abortion?  Yes just as it says in Exodus 21, Jesus paid for our sins, Life for life, hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.  Jesus paid all of our sins by dieing for our sins, he took our place upon the cross.  This is good news for those whom believe in Christ!

6.) Jesus is a father to the fatherless.  There is now no condemnation to those that believe on Christ!

7.) Elizabeth and Mary come together and John leap in his mothers womb.  At that moment the holy spirit came onto John.  God does and can predestine and elect children in the womb, can fill a baby with the spirit in his mothers womb.

Here is a direct link to the video.  I tried to put the video in the post but had no luck.  I will try and figure it out for the next posting.

http://cdn.marshillchurch.org/media/2009/10/18/20091018_mary-elizabeth_vodcast_video.m4v

Is that in the Sermon on the Mount—or Mein Kampf?

Oops, the video doesn’t embed. Watch on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kayRXtITyw&feature=related

I didn’t know people like this existed until today. R.C. Sproul has never used the internet, much less heard that his podcasts are Top 10 in Religion & Spirituality!

He’s never sent an email and still uses fax and phone to communicate. Caveman or Renaissance Man?

Watch this video clip on The Resurgence

Paul preaches the gospel in three cities with two distinct styles in Acts 17.  A great example of missional preaching.  A wise consideration of “Text & Context” (to borrow a phrase from Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle, WA).  When we have the opportunity and make opportunities to share the truth of the gospel with the people in our lives and the world around us, keeping an Acts 17 mind-set is important.  A consideration of sharing the truth in a way that best connects to those around us.  We do this in business, school, and family settings so why not in the gospel?

Let’s see what Paul does:

In Thessalonica: “Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,’ he said.” (vv 2-3)

In Berea: “They went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews…received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (vv 10-11)

In Athens: “So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,  for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (vv 22-32)

Paul did not deviate from the truth of the gospel in each of the three cities.  To those familiar with the law and Word of God, he used the Word to preach.  To those who didn’t know the Word of God at all, Paul used the context of their culture (idol inscriptions, Cretan poets & philosophers) to be the framework to present the gospel.  Paul did not compromise the truth when using the culture, nor did he neglect the culture in the presentation of the truth.

We live in a world that is filled with different cultures and sub-cultures.   As we care for the people in the world around us and desire that they come to salvation through Jesus Christ thoughtful consideration of how to share the truth with them is expedient.  Let’s have Paul’s “Acts 17″ heart and considerations today.

Mark Driscoll has some nice little worldview vignettes.  They are worth watching if you have 15 minutes:

Atheism:  Unyielding Despair

Deism: There is No Hero Coming

Pantheism-Panentheism:  New Spirituality/Old Lies

Theism:  We are Good and Have Great Hats

Christianity:  How Jesus is Different

“if God is like a lifeguard is He the lifeguard who reaches down And grabs the swimmers arm and pulls him out of the water, or is He the lifeguard who reaches his arm out and waits for the drowning swimmer to grab his arm before pulling him out?” mark driscoll said God is the former.

If a swimmer is drowning they do not have the strength to reach up and take hold of the lifeguards hand, much like us in our total depravity and spiritually dead state are before God reaches down and grabs us to pull us out of the water, so we will not drown. This is the beleif that we are saved only by Gods grace and by no act on our part, the beleif that we are totally depraved, and Jesus calls us which when He calls we cannot resist and then are redemed through our beleif by Jesus death on the cross, which we gain when God calls us and opens our eyes and hearts, and we are then drawn irresistably to God and inspired to live for His glory.

Amen, Hallelujah
Ethan

Life being like it is these days, CavWife gifted me with a tiny book by Mark Driscoll for my birthday.  It was from his A Book You’ll Actually Read series.  This little book is On Church Leadership.

Here is how they describe it:

Cheap, simple, and you can read it in an hour. Mark Driscoll will guide you through the 6 important areas of church leadership with clear Biblical teaching and a raw sense of humor. You’ll explore the topics eldership, deacons, members, and women in leadership—with plenty of surprises along the way.

What is lost in Mark’s sense of humor.  His personality is submerged, for the most part.  His personality is part of what makes reading his books so enjoyable for me (and I recognize what that says about me).  But Mark’s insight and experience remain, which is what makes this book still worth reading.  It would make a good book to give to officers (present and potential).

He explains a nearly-Presbyterian form of church government tweaked to be more effective in this day.  In some ways he is a tad too pragmatic, but we Presbyterians are too “traditional”.  The form of government, which I believe to be biblical, is unchanging but how we apply it should be adjust for time and place.  So, I can appreciate what Mark is doing but I just can’t go with him everywhere he goes.  That’s okay, though.

In his introduction he faces the reality that even church people have what NBA great Bill Russell called “little red wagons”.  They have agendas other than Jesus and His kingdom.  He talks about this in other books.  Here he applies it to church government.  He’s also honest about our struggle with authority, and how people’s refusal to submit to proper authority almost killed Mars Hill in the early days.

“Their varying demands quickly sidetracked the mission of our church to love our city and see it transformed by the power of Jesus.  Our internal church strife quickly overshadowed our external cultural mission.”

So he starts with Pastor Jesus, a brief reminder that Jesus is the Head of the church.  The first chapter is incredibly brief, perhaps too brief.  I wish he could have included more thoughts like this:

“And it is ultimately Jesus who closes churches down when they have become faithless or fruitless.  Therefore, it is absolutely vital that a church loves Jesus, obeys Jesus, imitates Jesus, and follows Jesus at all times and in all ways, according to the teaching of his Word.”

He moves on to  Elders.  He affirms the plurality of elders.  He dares to say what needs to be said.  He reminds us that the qualifications for elders are primarily those of a mature Christian man.  The first part of that is vital- mature Christians.  It is too common for churches to nominate popular or powerful men.  Businessmen will run the church like a business.  But mature Christians, tested as family men, will run the church like a family, seeking to lead others to maturity.  And they are men- in accordance with Scripture- which is not a popular statement today.

I appreciate the ways in which they have adapted how their Session operates.  At first they met in Mark’s home, enjoying dinner together as families.  While the kids played and the wives prayed, they met to lead the church.  Things are much different now.  That is good leadership, being able to adapt to changing circumstances as necessary.  Too often churches think that they must do things as they have done them in the past.

He moves on to Women in Ministry.  He briefly lays out the rationale for complementarianism: male headship in the home and church.  While being accused of being a Neanderthal, Mark is actually a moderate complementarian.  His application of his views in the life of the church are that women may doing everything except be elders.  For Mars Hill this means that women can serve communion and teach adult men, places I’m not willing to go.  I agree with him theologically, but have reservations about some of his practice.

After covering Deacons, and Members, he moves into a discussion of Leadership Teams.  He includes the idea of how church size affects communication and unity.  Roles and responsibilities must shift with church size.  When they don’t, conflict emerges.

He then briefly discusses the importance of Christ’s 3 offices (prophet, priest and king) to the life of the church and leadership teams.  The larger the group, the more important it becomes for the “first among equals” elder to be kingly.  Smaller churches often have/need a priestly elder leading them.

He then discusses the difference between the air war and the ground war.  The air war is essentially public ministry to further mission.  The ground war essentially the private (or small group) ministry to further mission.  Churches tend to be good at one or the other.  A good session will combine the 3 offices so the officers have appropriate responsibility for aspects of the air and ground war.

Before an appendix in which he answers questions, he ends on this note:

“Rather than avoiding conflict with people to instead of conflict with Jesus for failure to do what he tells you, you will just need to accept that a good church fight is bound to happen if you want to change things.  The key is to always remember that the church is a family, and so we fight with one another like every god family does, not as enemies, but knowing that we love each other.”

So Mark Driscoll has done the church a service by providing a book most anyone can read.  It is a quick and easy read.  You may not agree with everything he says, but he lays a good foundation for understanding church government and leadership to a generation that often doesn’t understand government and leadership.

If you have two minutes, this video interview of R C Sproul by Mark Driscoll, put up by the Resurgence, is well worth your time.

Sproul answers the question “Does God really want everyone to be saved?” and comes back with a killer answer that God’s disposition is towards loving kindness, but that does not interfere with his concern for righteousness and justice. Therefore, his judgement is carried out with tears because he does not delight in the destruction of the wicked.

Pastor Mark Driscoll examines Luke 2, where an angel announces the birth of Jesus, Christ the Lord, to shepherds in a field. The angel reveals how we are to see Jesus. We are not to insert him into a false ideology (e.g., atheism, deism, pantheism/panentheism, or theism) that offers no hope, no good news, no savior. Rather, we are to praise Jesus like the angels, Mary, and the shepherds did.

As we lead up to our Evangelism Conference on December 12-13th, I thought it would be appropriate to give some posts particularly geared towards evangelism.  Here’s a video of Mark Driscoll speaking on Evangelism.  I think Mark gets as close as any contemporary pastor to what biblical evangelism should look like.  In other words, it should be the joyful work of satisfied believers who love their neighbors and want to share with them their deepest love, namely God.  His words here are particularly helpful on how we can share the gospel: